


Home To A Place You Have Never Been

by Netgirl_y2k



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Ambiguous Relationships, F/F, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-06
Updated: 2014-09-06
Packaged: 2018-02-16 08:02:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 757
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2262060
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Netgirl_y2k/pseuds/Netgirl_y2k
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's a camp follower here, claiming to be a friend of Lady Sansa's.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Home To A Place You Have Never Been

Ser Jaime kept his vow, and Sansa was delivered into the care of her mother’s uncle Brynden Tully to see her the rest of the way to Riverrun.

Sansa had never visited her mother’s childhood home, but when she saw the walls of Riverrun rising up before her she nearly wept. When the drawbridge was raised and she saw her mother and brother riding out to meet her she did weep.

Lady Catelyn wept too, and even Robb - who looked as old as Sansa felt, and had grown a beard which made him look older still - had a glassy expression and was blinking a lot.

Sansa wanted to fall to the ground and kiss Riverrun’s flagstones, she wanted to fall into her mother’s arms like she had when she was a little girl and never surface again. 

All the same, their reunion was occasionally tense. Sansa would not, could not, talk of her time as a hostage in King’s Landing, which only made Lady Catelyn imagined the worst. Robb was a king now, and he was just and strong and _good_ , just as Sansa had always known he would be; but Robb hadn’t come for her, it had been her mother and Ser Jaime.

There was talk of sending her on to White Harbor, to join Arya and Rickon; she would be safer there, they said.

They were at supper one evening - Sansa, her mother, Robb and his queen, and Sansa’s Tully uncles - when a Stark armsman dared to interrupt.

"Your Grace, my lady—" the man looked nervous, as well as a little confused "—there’s a camp follower here, claiming to be a friend of Lady Sansa’s."

Lady Catelyn scowled, and Robb opened his mouth to rebuff what he took to be an ill-advised joke. But Sansa had already shot to her feet and thrown herself into the arms of the woman who'd stepped out from behind the guardsman.

"Shae! I’ve been so worried about you. What if something had happened on the road—?"

Shae shushed Sansa, smoothing her hair away from her face. “I sailed from Volantis to King’s Landing when I was but thirteen; this was nothing.”

Sansa tugged Shae all the way into the room. “This is Shae, she is—”

In truth, however Shae had talked her way into Riverrrun she looked like nothing so much as a camp follower, but she held her chin high and met Lady Catelyn’s eyes evenly. “I was your daughter’s handmaiden in King’s Landing.”

"You were my friend," Sansa insisted. To her mother she said, "She protected me, she saved me. I wouldn’t have made it without her."

It was Robb’s wife who said, “Any friend of Lady Sansa’s is welcome here.”

Sansa had paid little enough attention to her new good-sister, had only noted that she didn’t look much like a queen. That didn’t mean much; Cersei Lannister looked every inch the queen, and Shae didn’t look like someone a highborn girl should be cleaving to nearly so closely. Sansa flashed the new queen in the north a grateful little smile.

Robb followed his wife’s example and welcomed Shae to Riverrun; Lady Catelyn welcomed her also, saying she looked forward to hearing what had first brought Shae to Sansa’s service, and what had compelled her to risk the journey to Riverrun.

Uncle Edmure was staring at Shae with eyes as round as dinner plates, and Uncle Blackfish wore a smirk. Sansa was not the only Stark to come home with a stray. Uncle Brynden had told her that Arya had been delivered to Riverrun with a blacksmith, and a baker, only lacking the candlestick maker. And Rickon had arrived with one hand buried in Shaggydog’s fur and the other clinging to a wildling woman.

After the slightly strained meal, Sansa insisted on being the one to find Shae some chambers and more suitable garb.

She took Shae up to the walls and showed her the sights to be seen; mostly the river and sites were Sansa's Uncle Edmure said he'd recently fought battles. She said that her sister and youngest brother were alive, and that she was being sent on to meet them. "You have to come with me to White Harbor," said Sansa, clutching Shae's hands. "Unless— you do want to stay with me, don’t you?"

Shae shot Sansa that look that meant she though that Sansa was being silly again; she twined their fingers together and said, “I did not spend the last few weeks walking through a warzone only to be parted from you.”


End file.
